Marvin Morrison

My Dad passed away yesterday. Those words still don't seem quite real. He has been there all of my 52 years. Now, for the first time, that won't be true. I miss him already. I have such a jumble of thoughts about him, and I can't put them into words. But I can't pass up the opportunity to say something about him.

I owe him my life. That is true in at least three senses. Of course, he is my father. If he hadn't pursued my mother, if he hadn't been a good soldier (and had God's protection), if he hadn't valued children, if he hadn't been willing to risk again after losing two kids just after birth, I would never have been born.

If he hadn't been a man of vision and a fearless risktaker, the huge chunk of land we now call Morrison Ranch would never have been accumulated, and I and my family would not even have the chance to create a community where one did not exist, nor to work together on a project that extends our parents' legacy.

And he always believed in God. That would be all the time I knew him. I hear stories of a moment in time when he was twelve when he responded in faith to the love of God. But, as I knew him, he just always believed. And he prayed. And he taught elementary Sunday School classes that just happened to have his son in them. And he set an example. So, for all the things that brought me to my own moment in time, one of them was his example that it was normal, right, to believe.

Yes, I owe him my life.

I miss him.